Old threads

This is a discussion on Old threads within the A Brief History of Cprogramming.com forums, part of the Community Boards category; Let's say someone posts a thread named "3D objects in DirectX" and asks how he can make a cylinder. He ...

Let's say someone posts a thread named "3D objects in DirectX" and asks how he can make a cylinder. He gets an answer. Then, some years later someone else posts a reply asking, how he can make a cone. What would you say to him?

"Stop it, someone may be subscribed to this thread!"
"Stop bumping threads! You just want it to be the first thread on the list."
"Why do you ask the same thing?"
"This thread was about DirectX 9.0b, but you are probably using DirectX 9.0c"
"Cone has nothing to do with cylinder, although the title is 3D objects."

I think that this issue doesn't matter and that you don't have a real point. Threads age, get really long, boring, and off-topic. So it's good that they are put to rest after two weeks or so. Besides, I personally would hate wading through 100+ posts to get an answer to a question, and so would anyone inclined to answer it. As we've informed you.

Let's say someone posts a thread named "3D objects in DirectX" and asks how he can make a cylinder. He gets an answer. Then, some years later someone else posts a reply asking, how he can make a cone. What would you say to him?

Actually I'd more likely say something along the lines of "What exactly is this thread about again?" The reason has been given in slightly different ways. Essentially most people are either gone from the forum or have forgotten what the thread was about. Also threads with a lot of posts to them are less likely to be read because it would take longer. Especially pointless threads like this one.

Let's say someone posts a thread named "3D objects in DirectX" and asks how he can make a cylinder. He gets an answer. Then, some years later someone else posts a reply asking, how he can make a cone. What would you say to him?

"What did you just gain from posting this in the old thread instead of a new one?"

For example, I, as a potential helper, lost the information that this is, in fact, a new thread that has not yet been answered. I lost the information that the poster is the OP of the thread. I lose the exact and immediate (without reading tiny timestamps) knowledge of what is relevant to the new question and what is not.

"What did you just lose from posting this in the old thread instead of a new one?"

I, as a frequent searcher of this forum, just lost the availability of two concise and complete guides for the (not-too-distant) future. If I am searching for how to make a cone, my search will come up with this thread, but I'll have to weed through all of the cylinder stuff I don't care about to get to the cone. It's annoying.

In the end, it comes down this:
If you don't bump, there's no harm done. If the thread topic is horribly frequent, it will be added to the FAQ.
If you bump the thread, there are a multitude of problems that can occur. Sometimes bumping may not be a big deal, and other times it is.

Since nothing is lost by posting a new thread, the administrators have decided not to allow bumping as a whole. It's a simple choice based on the weighted consequences of both options. It is not, as you imply, like throwing the baby out with the bath water, since there is no baby in this particular bath water.

Most times when I search this forum, anything older than 3 years I don't even look at. Consider some APIs over the years... like DirectX what was suggested when DX7 was out is vastly different than DX9.

Also with compilers becoming more and more standards compliant, the available ways of doing things are different.

I know 70% of why I don't like old threads. The other 30% is the unjust predejuce I carry against everything!

The other 30% are the same questions that get asked every single day. "How to make my console stay up after my program finishes! HELP!" If you're going to respond to one of those posts, you might as well respond to the one that was likely asked within the past 24 hours.